Ben Bishop stopped all 37 shots he faced for the victory. There was no doubt the Lightning were loosey goosey defensively in the First and Second Periods, due a lot to the absence of Radko Gudas, but Bishop is the big eraser of mistakes. His First Period glove stop on Stralman will make highlight reels, for sure. Another night where U of Maine Justice was served.

Life is good when you have a true number one goaltender. You give Bishop a few goals of support to work with and he's going to get you across the finish line on most nights. The Lightning did a decent enough job keeping the really heinous odd man rushes and breakaways out of their game, and even though they were loose in their own end and allowed a ton of shots, it was enough. All that said, I wouldn't want a steady diet of it and I hope Gudas returns very, very soon.

The Kucherov goal was a nice story, especially on this website, but it was gravy and not meat and potatoes. The meat and potatoes story of the night was that Marty and Purcell each had a pair of goals. Those two getting on track is what has to happen for the Lightning to stay in the hunt until #91's return. Silky smooth hands by Martin St. Louis on his two breakaway goals. I'd expect nothing less if the Swedish Battletank, Fredrik Modin, made the trek down to the game, as he did tonight.

Mark Barberio was +1 with 1 shot, 2 hits, and 1 blocked shot. He's not going to ever be confused for Scott Stevens in his own third, but if he cuts down the really poor turnovers, the Lightning may be able to live with him.

Tyler Johnson had 2 shots and 2 blocked shots in 18:38 and was 75% on draws. Home cooking agrees with Tyler's faceoff percentage.

Alex Killorn had a helper and was +3 with 4 penalty minutes, 1 shot, and 1 blocked shot in 14:13. He was also 25% on draws. It's a decent stat line, but the number of penalties he's taking won't cut it.

Ondrej Palat had 3 shots and 1 blocked shot in 19:23. Excellent on the penalty kill. Excellent on one or two occasions carrying the puck for entry into the offensive zone on the PP. He's quietly a backbone type player on the lower lines.

J.T. Brown was +2 with 2 shots and 3 hits in 16:45. His speed allows him to be very active in the play and he's got a quick release that he isn't afraid to use. He's been a nice fit getting some scoring line and PP minutes.

Kucherov scored his first NHL goal on his first NHL shot on his first NHL shift. Efficiency. He was also +2 with 1 shot and 1 hit in 11:31. You got a taste of his talents tonight, with a quick, hard release on his goal and a quick, crafty setup to Teddy Purcell that nearly amounted to a helper. That was the good. The nitpick side points out he got away with one offensive zone penalty that sprung Purcell on his first goal and he probably got away with another offensive zone penalty later in the game. I don't know if the refs had great dinner reservations they didn't want to miss, but both teams got away with bloody murder in the offensive zone in the second half of tonight's game.

Andrej Sustr had a helper and was +1 with 2 blocked shots in 21:44. He recovered from a pretty terrible shift early in the First Period to have a decent night lugging big minutes in Gudas' absence.

Ben Bishop allowed 1 goal on 43 shots for the overtime loss, and the 1 goal was actually knocked in by Panik, otherwise Bishop would've swept it off the line. That was an outstanding performance by Bishop who turned away what seemed like a half dozen breakaways and several other quality chances once the game degenerated into glorified line rushes.

First Period
NO SCORING

Second Period
NO SCORING

Third Period
NO SCORING

Overtime
4:52 ANA Getzlaf (13), (unassisted)

Bishop was the game's third star.

Just a bizarre game, with the Lightning alternating moments when they looked to be forechecking well and generating chances and other moments where they displayed sieve-like defense allowing far to many breakaways and scoring chances. And, no matter how good a chance either team got, it didn't seem to matter because the goaltenders were so in command.

The Lightning really needed that second point tonight, though. They finish the trip at 0-3-1-0 with just 1 of 8 possible points. In segment 3 of the season they have 1 point after 3 games, meaning they'd need 11 of 14 possible points in the remaining 7 of the segment to hit 12. That's a tall, tall order.

Radko Gudas had 5 penalty minutes, 2 hits, and 1 blocked shot in 7:25 before leaving the game with an upper body injury. The Lightning are in real trouble if Gudas is out for any extended period of time. It's unclear if Gudas pulled something after getting jumped by Luca Sbisa following a clean hit on Mathieu Perrault, or if he sustained it or aggravated it further after a hit on Corey Perry in the Second Period. I saw an odd play where he tried to move the puck with one arm while his other arm hung slack in the Second Period before leaving the game, but he was also seen with an ice pack on his face before the Second Period. Either way, the Lightning have nothing to replace what Gudas has meant to this team so far this year in terms of minutes, shot blocking, and physical presence. It's a straw/camel's back moment if Gudas goes on IR, potentially.

Mark Barberio had 2 shots and 1 blocked shot in 16:19. Man he's frightening in his own end.

Tyler Johnson had 2 penalty minutes, 3 shots, and was 43% on draws in 19:42. You could argue he was the Lightning's best player not named Ben Bishop tonight and he generated several very good scoring chances for himself.

Alex Killorn had 4 penalty minutes, 3 shots, and 1 hit in 19:17. He was also 50% on draws. He darn near won it in OT on a beautiful behind the back spinning shot attempt.

Ondrej Palat had 1 hit and 1 blocked shot in 22:15. His ice time says it all. He was one of the few guys the Lightning had doing all the little things right.

J.T. Brown had 6 shots, 2 hits, and 1 blocked shot in 13:22. He was extremely active in the First Period and carried that on into the Second Period. I also don't remember his shot having such a quick release. Must come from hanging around all those Russians.

Andrej Sustr had 1 shot and 1 hit in 12:09. At one point, defending a 2-on-1, he did the old Pavel Kubina praying mantis maneuver dropping to his belly. Anaheim's forward read it and slowed down hoping Sustr would clear. He was, I dunno, 8 feet away from Andrej. With Andrej's reach, Andrey still swept the puck away from him. My goodness what reach.

Richard Panik was -1 with 1 shot and 1 hit in 17:14. He was dangerous throughout the game, but the ending was unfortunate given he knocked the puck in. Would've been nice if Bishop could've swept it off the line successfully, given the success Filppula and the team have had in the shootout.

Andres Lindback allowed 5 goals on 36 shots for the loss. Honestly, though, I can't fault him any of the 5 goals and he made some key stops that gave the Lightning the opportunity to make this a game. They simply could not put one in before garbage time to support their backup.

Well, the scoreboard isn't entirely different than what I expected. So, that's obviously a negative. Unlike the Kings game, though, there were more silver linings in this defeat. The effort level was there for 60 minutes and this could have been a game if the Lightning could've gotten a bounce or deflection to go their way. After doing nothing in LA, they did manage to outshot San Jose in this one and the line juggling by Jon Cooper did appear to have some promise. We'll see if that translates to anything against Anaheim.

Mark Barberio was -1 with 1 shot, 1 hit, and 1 blocked shot in 18:11. I thought the game was in Spain for a moment given the matador style effort to allow Marleau the break for San Jose's 5th goal. Ole!

Tyler Johnson had a goal and 2 shot, 2 hits, and 2 blocked shots in 16:54. He was also 33% on draws. The good news is he's consistently getting scoring chances every game. The bad news is the league seems to be getting a book on him in the faceoff circles and his percentage is starting to take a beating recently.

Alex Killorn was -1 with 2 penalty minutes, 3 shots, and he was 38% on draws in his first game back as a center. And, he really needs to stop taking offensive zone penalties. For real. It's starting to border on Conacher-esque. That's not good.

Ondrej Palat had a helper and 4 shots and 5 hits in 17:39. The kid line was the Lightning's best line tonight, and Palat was part of the reason why.

J.T. Brown was -1 with 1 shot and 1 hit in 14:23. He was out with the first team PP unit for a First Period shift that spent nearly the full 2 minutes in San Jose's end, but they could not convert.

Richard Panik had a helper and 1 shot and 3 hits in 15:16. He had a beautiful cross ice feed for the secondary assist on Johnson's goal and he looked like he was handling the puck very well tonight (even a little overconfident at times). Kind of poor judgement moving the puck on San Jose's 4th goal, but he got it back later. Can't say the same for some of the vets on their boo boo's tonight.

Anaheim actually outshot Tampa Bay 25-20 in the game, but the scoreboard, in this case, was a far better indicator of the balance of play. The Lightning had a lot of zone time and puck possession. That didn't necessarily lead to a ton of shots and chances, but they buried the ones that they got, which allowed them to cruise after scoring their 5th goal early in the Third Period. True, some of the luster was off this game with Stamkos and Getzlaf hurt and Perry limited due to illness, but to crush the Western Conference's top team in the standings by a 5-1 margin was still impressive. The Lightning improve to 2-0-0 post-Stamkos injury, and match the 14 points they put up in the first 10-game set of the season with 1 more to go in the second set.

Radko Gudas was +1 with 4 penalty minutes, 5 hits, and 2 blocked shots in 19:34. I'd love someone to ask Selanne how many times in his career he's been hit as hard as on the hit where Gudas trucked him tonight. My guess is not often.

Mark Barberio had a helper and 1 blocked shot in 16:12. With the balance of the game in Anaheim's end of the rink, you'd be correct in guessing Barberio's game went well. That side of the game is obviously Barberio's forte.

Tyler Johnson had a helper and was +1 with 2 penalty minutes, 1 shot, and he was 59% on draws.

Alex Killorn got a goal and was +1 with 2 shots in 15:43. North-south. He made a nifty little play on a toe drag to get a shot on goal and then chipped in his own rebound on his goal. A little bit of skill, but ultimately it's a simple north-south play where he got the result.

Ondrej Palat was +1 with 2 penalty minutes in 15:33. Took a charging call that was far too ticky tack as the referees were calling everything to try to stop a riot from starting in a game where Anaheim was getting embarrassed.

J.T. Brown had a helper and was +1 with 4 shots, 1 hit, and 1 blocked shot in 14:25. He's fit into the lineup pretty seamlessly, and he went to the net on the PP goal where he got his helper.

Richard Panik had a helper and was +1 with 2 penalty minutes and 1 shot in 12:05. He took his call on a mean spirited hit on Ben Lovejoy where he just about sawed the Ducks defender in half. There were times this was a very chippy game where the Ducks were taking runs at the Lightning and the Lightning responded by taking runs back. The difference is that when the Ducks did it, they didn't do damage. The Lightning were hitting to hurt and achieving their objectives.